Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s 2025 budget takes $16 million away from future rail projects to fill gaps in a spending plan that faces its first vote on Thursday evening.
For the first time since the transit savings program began six years ago, Miami-Dade would not fund the required payment in 2025 for the taxing district created in 2018 around the county’s Metrorail and Metromover tracks.
There is $82 million in the fund now, and the Levine Cava budget blocks the planned $16 million increase.
“You’re actually stealing from the future of transit,” Commissioner Eileen Higgins told the Miami Herald, two weeks after nearly 80% of county voters said Miami-Dade should expand rapid mass transit options in a non-binding referendum the commission put on the Aug. 20 ballot.
Higgins chairs the county’s Transportation committee and has taken the lead in pursuing dollars from Washington for a county-funded commuter train that would run on Brightline tracks. “When we apply for these federal grants, we have to show we have the matching funds ready,” she said.
Levine Cava’s plan not to fund the county’s Transportation Infrastructure Improvement
District is adding tension to a budget approval process that’s already shaping up to be the roughest of Levine Cava’s first term.
Prior budgets have been flush with more than $1 billion in federal COVID aid, but Levine Cava says the administration has run out of new federal dollars to plug spending holes and fund new programs.
Meanwhile, the 2025 budget has added expenses requiring new dollars.
Those include $30 million in transition costs linked to the creation of newly independent departments to be run by officers that voters will elect in November: sheriff, elections supervisor and tax collector.
Also eating up budget dollars: a $10.5 million subsidy for the 2026 World Cup games in Miami Gardens and $26 million to pay off the debt and other expenses for the civil courthouse expected to open in downtown Miami next year.
“We’re dealing with a terrifically difficult budget season,” Levine Cava said Tuesday night during an online forum conducted by the Women’s Fund Miami-Dade, a nonprofit advocacy group.
In a brief interview Wednesday, Levine Cava suggested she’s open to putting the $16 million back into the transit fund before the final budget vote later this month. Asked about the controversy, she replied: “Stay tuned. It’s important we invest in our transit.”
Commissioners will take their first vote on Levine Cava’s proposed budget ordinances after a public hearing that begins at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center. The budget has flat property-tax rates and an 8% increase in spending from current levels. A final vote is scheduled after a second public hearing on Sept. 19.
Some friction points and sources of strain in the budget proposal include:
- Reductions in some nonprofit grants. The county’s Cultural Affairs Department has a 10% reduction in grants available for nonprofits, with a cut of roughly $2.5 million to this year’s pool of $23 million. The Levine Cava budget also has $1 million for Legal Services of Greater Miami to represent low-income tenants facing eviction. That’s down from about $2 million this year. “The County’s investment in this program is pivotal in advancing housing stability during these critical times,” Monica Vigues-Pitan, CEO of Legal Services, said in a statement Wednesday.
- Higher spending on armed drivers and security for Miami-Dade commissioners. The budget has $3 million for nine police officers to serve as sergeants-at-arms for the 13 commissioners. That’s up from $1.3 million for five commission sergeants in this year’s budget. While police officers are county employees through the end of 2024 , it will be up to the new sheriff to decide how many officers the commission gets in 2025.
- Higher fees for water and garbage services.The budget includes a 27% increase in the $547 yearly fee Miami-Dade charges for garbage services for households that don’t receive trash pick-up from cities. That $150 increase is set to end the operating deficit the county’s Solid Waste Department has been running for years. The budget also includes a 6% increase in water fees, which the county says translates to an extra $3.43 a month for the typical home in Miami-Dade.
- Miami-Dade’s first payments for the new courthouse.Though approved in 2019, the county’s new $267 million civil courthouse hasn’t cost Miami-Dade anything yet. But that changes in early 2025, when Miami-Dade is required to pay developer Plenary Group $26 million as the first installment in three decades of yearly payments after the 28-story tower opens on West Flagler Street, next to the existing 1928 courthouse. Miami-Dade has put that building up for sale.
- A World Cup subsidy.Miami-Dade commissioners in May approved a $36 million subsidy for World Cup soccer games being played in Miami Gardens in 2026. Most of the allocation comes from free police and paramedic hours that sporting events usually pay for themselves but Miami-Dade agreed to cover for the global soccer tournament. The allocation also included a $10.5 million cash payout, which is in the 2025 budget.
Despite the friction over reserves for future rail projects, the 2025 budget also has new money for the first major expansion of transit in Miami-Dade since Metrorail opened its Miami International Airport station in 2012. The county’s South Dade rapid-transit bus line — a 20-mile line of buses running in dedicated lanes between a network of new climate-controlled stations — is set to open in the first half of 2025. The $368 million project was approved in 2018, and the 2025 budget has $15 million to pay the added expenses needed for operations and maintenance.
The county’s reserves for future major transit projects draw money from property taxes that otherwise would go to police, parks and other county needs. The 2018 legislation that started the savings program requires Miami-Dade to reserve a portion of new property taxes generated from real estate around major transit lines, though commissioners can waive that yearly contribution.
Projects that could benefit from the money include a $2 billion expansion of Metrorail north to Miami Gardens and a Metromover extension to Florida International University likely to cost more than $1 billion.
Because the reserves calculation is based on growth from property values in recent years, most of the money forecast to be raised will come decades from now. The most recent forecast expected $5 billion in the fund by 2053, making the 2025 contribution of $16 million a rounding error.
But the proposal to freeze savings has irked some elected officials. The reserves legislation was sponsored by Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo when he was a Miami-Dade commissioner, and he now serves as chair of the county’s Transportation Planning Organization, which oversees federal transportation funding in the county.
“Sadly, the county gets in its own way trying to deliver on its promise of expansion of transit,” Bovo said Wednesday of the budget proposal by Levine Cava, who defeated him in the 2020 mayoral race. He called the transit reserves a way to expand the current system without raising taxes. “I’m disappointed and concerned that the county will once again fail the residents of Miami-Dade County.”
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